Wouldn't It Be Loverly
by DeniseV
Summary: The Atlantis crew have been busy since winning their home back from the Replicators. John and Rodney both could use some sleep. Episode tag for The Return, Part II. Slash.


Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard looked at his clock beside the bed. Crap. Once again, and for a little over two weeks straight now, he'd woken up a solid hour before he had to. What was up with that? As though a five-thirty wake-up call wasn't early enough, now he was losing an hour, every night, of much-needed, and even more than that, desperately desired sleep.

He felt sluggish, no surprise there, as he pulled his feet from the bed and dropped them to the floor. His head felt like an anvil balancing on his neck – he felt certain that if he tried to stand he would take a serious and dangerous nosedive straight to the floor.

He felt hung over, desperately so, as though hiding under the covers would take care of it all and he'd rise in eight more hours right as rain. But he didn't have eight hours. He looked at the clock again. He had one hour…only two minutes had passed, but he knew he wouldn't sleep with the knowledge that he'd just have to be up again in less that an hour anyway.

And there was still that problem of actually getting up. Maybe he was sick. Something didn't feel right, that was for sure, but they had all been dragging these last few weeks. He thought about contacting the infirmary, but that action seemed rash, especially in light of the fact that he'd had dinner with Carson and Rodney the night before and everything had been fine, relatively speaking. At least he hadn't fallen asleep in his meatloaf.

Rodney hadn't been fine at dinner. McKay was cranky, irritable, pissy, contrary. The man had slept worse than Sheppard lately, and far less. John couldn't blame him for his bad mood.

Maybe John could call Rodney instead. He was probably already up. McKay had a lot going on right now, trying to make sure that Atlantis was functioning properly and not left with any booby-traps, either planned or inadvertent, by the rebuilding done by the Replicators.

Sheppard reached for his earpiece, put it on and tapped it. "Sheppard to Dr. McKay."

Rodney responded right away. "Yes, Colonel?"

He may have responded immediately, but his voice was full of exhaustion.

"Hey, Rodney. Would you, uh, come to my quarters?" John asked hesitantly.

"Right now?" McKay asked, sounding confused and concerned.

"Do you have time?"

"Um, sure. Is something wrong?"

"I don't know."

"On my way," Rodney answered, sounding more awake, less tired, and a lot more concerned.

Crap.

Sheppard waited patiently, still seated, his arms to his sides, his hands holding tightly to the edge of the small bed's mattress.

Rodney made it in less than five minutes.

"Come on in," John said quietly as McKay let himself in. Rodney walked straight to the bed and stood in front of the colonel. "That was fast."

"I was worried," the physicist admitted. He was taking deep breaths to catch up on the air that he'd missed while clearly rushing to get to Sheppard's quarters.

"Me, too," John admitted as he looked up into Rodney's eyes.

"What's wrong?" McKay asked, followed by, "Should we call Carson?"

"I don't know. We didn't go out drinking last night, did we?"

"I wish. Why? You can't remember last night?" Rodney started a small loop, pacing as he worried, both physically, and with more expertise, verbally. "You've lost your memory? We should get you to the infirmary in that case. This could be serious. You might have had an aneurysm or something." He stopped pacing and snapped his fingers. "Or maybe it was those damned Replicators. I knew that long term exposure out here was dangerous and might eventually bite us in the a…"

"Rodney!" John yelled over the rambling.

"Hm?"

"I don't have amnesia. I just feel like I went on a bender."

"Then why didn't you say that in the first place?"

John shook his head and couldn't help grinning at McKay's worried rant. "I just feel really lethargic, my head is killing me. It feels about twice as big as normal, and maybe four times as heavy."

Rodney's eyes glazed over.

"Rodney!"

"Oh. Sorry," he said, a slight flush coloring his face and neck. "Well, I can speak for myself that I didn't get drunk…haven't had that luxury for a while. There are a lot of things I haven't done for a while." His eyes started to wander again, but this time he caught himself. "But it wasn't my turn on the schedule to watch you. You know I'd volunteer for extra duty…"

"Funny." Sheppard cut him off. Again.

Rodney sat next to John on the bed. "Have you been having trouble sleeping?"

"Have you?"

"Yes, but I'm not the one holding onto the bed for dear life. And I have a little more experience than you do working on little to no sleep."

Sheppard nodded his head. "We're quite a pair."

"Yes we are," Rodney agreed.

"You know, if I go to Carson he's going to…"

Rodney continued the train of thought. "'A', tell you to get some sleep and, 'B', give you a nice horse pill to help with that, and then 'C', tell you that a visit to Psych is probably in order."

"Right."

"So?"

"I think he's right, at least about the first two."

"Then we'll get Elizabeth to make sure you don't get disturbed and you sleep," Rodney explained, as though the answer was really that simple.

"Hm." John turned his body toward Rodney. "Man, I feel like shit."

"I'm calling Elizabeth," McKay warned.

"No. Wait. What about you?"

"What about me?" Rodney asked defensively.

"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" John asked with concern.

"No. Why?" Rodney crossed his arms. "And since when don't you like what you see?"

John leaned over and kissed his scientist. "Rodney, you need to sleep, too. Maybe it's time we turned over command for a day or so, just to catch up. At this rate, it's just a matter of time before one of us crashes, and I'm not real anxious to win that contest."

"Me neither."

"So, do we have a deal? I'll call Elizabeth, you call Carson? Take a couple of days off?"

McKay looked pretty skeptical; he suspected neither of them could go one twenty-four hour stretch without being contacted by someone, let alone two days. He doubted he'd be able to get away with a quarter of that.

"Deal." He made the deal, intending to keep up his end, even if he doubted that others would allow him to stick to that deal. Plus, if he worked this just right, they might even be able to get in a little sex at the end of their two day slumber.

And how sad was it that a two day slumber sounded better than sex right now to the genius Canadian, who had gone well over two weeks now without getting any?

Twenty minutes later, which included three 'phone' calls and one house call, John and Rodney were laying in bed, spooned up together on Sheppard's tiny bed, the pillow softly cushy and molded to their heads. Rodney kissed the messy, tangled bed-head in front of him. John leaned back into the crook of Rodney's neck, straining his own neck muscles in order to kiss his lover's cheek. He snuggled back into the pillow.

"Feeling better yet?" Rodney asked as he rubbed slow, soothing circles on John's chest.

"Mm-hmm." Sheppard tapped McKay's fingers and added, "This feels good."

"And the pill."

"Carson's a good man," John slurred softly.

Rodney snorted equally softly. "Yes." And a good friend, McKay thought.

"I might sleep for two days," John warned.

It would be sleep that was long overdue and well-earned, even if it did push the limit of endurance on the 'other' thing. But thoughts of doing anything but sleep were drifting farther and farther from Rodney's mind.

"Wouldn't it be loverly," Rodney mumbled as they both headed into dreamland.

The End.


End file.
